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RSA and

by Lindsay Yee

The New Zealand Returned and Services Association was looking to refresh it’s brand and head into a new direction. In November last year, at the Annual RSA conference in Wellington a new logo was launched along with a press release.

The new “Living the Anzac Spirit Today” strategy challenges the RSA to transform perceptions of itself from a place which old blokes disappear into, to an organisation that is known to stand for something and is seen to play a valuable role in society.  The vision is to champion the Anzac spirit across all generations, by embracing its foundation values of compassion, camaraderie, courage and commitment.

Like many old logos that have not been properly digitized the old RSA emblem was in need of a clean up. The design work was done by Designworks with help from Kris Sowersby.

In terms of updating the previous and just comparing the two. This is a very nice update, small things add up to make this mark much stronger. The rasing of the baseline of the ‘N’ and  ’Z', the sharp corners of the letters, the removal of one of the stroke lines, the simplifying the crown all successfully keep the mark recognisable and give it a contemporary update.

The most obvious addition to the logo is the large RSA type which sits on the top of the whole mark and the red ‘V’ just below. The red element adds colour and impact and is a nice designer touch, incorporating a medal ribbon, a heart, and a red poppy into the one shape. All these elements combine to create a war medal, which is a nice idea. However I feel the top two elements are a little over powering, it almost seems as if there are two logos combined together. The website does does use just the lower element on many pages, this may be as an alternate or as a transition between the two.

Overall a nice update. What are your thoughts? Do you like the war medal look? The red poppy, heart, ribbon combo to your liking? Comment down below.